Waiting for a Sign

RECALLING FOOLHARDY

Early mornings the mind wanders. Body also. Just stepped off the treadmill, early exercise, the same length, speed, time and incline as the old standard round-the-long-block walk that before January 24, 2011 required minimum three then four eventually five stops to rest and wait for the chest pain to subside! One stop always to lean casually on the chainlink fence across the street. It's cool, man, I'm good, just admiring the Bay. Fool. Working at the school summer 2010 stopping and waiting while walking from the Cove School building to the house across the street where the contractor’s bending brake was located: stop, wait, turn and look, pretend to check out the building. Stop and wait at least twice and pretend to look at class photos and read posters on the wall while walking from one end of the hall to the other! People (that’s me) are stupid.

Isaiah 7. Ominously, significantly, God's poignant joke, the worst, right down at the end, occurred at two funerals. Stop instantly to sit on the bench in the memorial garden at St. Thomas and pretend to admire the garden; an hour later in excruciating pain, lean casually, cooly, on the front fender of the hearse at Greenwood Cemetery waiting for the pallbearers to remove the casket so I could lead them to the gravesite. Then at Nativity, Dothan walking the casket down the aisle after the service as the pain stirred, stop in blinding agony nearly blacked out, unable to see, and pretend to read the bulletin board in front of the church before walking five steps to the rector’s car; and on the ride to the cemetery, with feigned humility, telling the rector that she needn’t give me a speaking part at the interment. 

Isaiah 7, “I dare not ask the Lord for a sign,” says Ahaz. “Now therefore, behold, the Lord himself will jolly well give you a sign anyway, fool,” says Isaiah.

Need a sign? 

Nope, I'm good.

I'll give you signs anyway. Notice how they are more and more pointed, fool.

Two years on, looking forward to a beautiful day!

Tom+ in +Time